July 27, 2000
Review & Outlook
'Loose Enterprise'
"I never worried about what Webb Hubbell would say," President
Clinton told Justice Department campaign-finance task force head
Robert Conrad in April. "If he wanted to say something bad about
me, he'd have to make it up."
Webster Hubbell is the former Associate Attorney General of the
United States and Arkansas crony of the President and First Lady
who pleaded guilty to fraud in 1994 and went to prison for 18
months. Two independent counsels -- Robert Fiske and Kenneth
Starr -- saw Mr. Hubbell as one of the keys to the Clintons'
Whitewater dealings and sought the truth from him in the manner
prosecutors do, with high-stakes pressure and cajoling. At the
same time, supporters' money rained down on Mr. Hubbell, most
notably in the form of a $100,000 payment from another Clinton
insider, James Riady of Indonesia. Mr. Hubbell said nothing to
implicate the Clintons.
Mr. Clinton's interview with Mr. Conrad, released by the White
House Monday, again raises questions of corrupt influence that
haunt this Presidency and the 2000 campaign. Was the $100,000
Lippo payment hush money to keep Webb Hubbell silent? Was Mr.
Riady at the center of what former Justice task force head
Charles La Bella called a suspected "loose enterprise" criminal
conspiracy to shred campaign finance laws?
The Whitewater investigation merges with the campaign-finance
probe in the figure of James Riady, with Justice examining
campaign contributions from Mr. Riady's $12 billion conglomerate,
the Lippo Group.
The President's answers to Mr. Conrad sound a familiarly evasive
note. Take the possible hush money payment. Circumstantial
evidence that something was going on is strong. Mr. Riady met
with Mr. Hubbell -- then under tremendous pressure to cooperate
with Mr. Starr -- on the morning of June 23, 1994; in the
afternoon, Mr. Riady saw the President in the White House. Four
days later, a Lippo entity cut Mr. Hubbell a check for $100,000.
Mr. Conrad asked Mr. Clinton, "Do you have any recollection of a
conversation with Mr. Riady concerning Webster Hubbell in the
days before a Riady-controlled entity paid him $100,000?"
"No, sir, I don't," the President said, and then began to
establish wiggle room: "You know, let me say this. It's possible
that he could have said to me, 'I'm going to help Webb Hubbell,
you know, I know Webb Hubbell and I want to try to help him,'
because everybody knew that I knew him well, that he had been
here working. And so if, in fact, I did meet with him then, if
that, in fact, did happen, and if -- . But I don't remember it,
but might have met with him. If, in fact, I met with him it
wouldn't surprise me if he'd said that, something like that in
passing. But I do not remember him doing that."
Mr. Clinton also was asked about $1 million Mr. Riady purportedly
pledged to funnel to Democrats in the 1992 campaign. Mr. Riady
allegedly offered the money to Mr. Clinton during an August 1992
car ride. As a foreign national, Mr. Riady is barred from
contributing to U.S. campaigns.
Here again Mr. Clinton's memory failed him. If Mr. Riady had
offered the money during the car ride, the President told Mr.
Conrad, "I'm surprised I don't remember it. I mean, but I, I -- .
You asked me what I remember. I can't remember any specific
thing. I know that I saw him sometime in '92 after I became the
nominee, and I know he said he was going to help us. If he said
he was going to give us $1 million, which he might have done, I
just don't remember it."
For four years, FBI Director Louis Freeh has urged Attorney
General Reno to appoint an independent counsel precisely because
figures such as Mr. Riady and Mr. Hubbell are so close to the
President. In memos to the Attorney General, Mr. Freeh has argued
that a "core group," including top White House officials, aided
by a floating cast of "opportunists," set out to illegally funnel
money to Clinton-Gore campaigns and other entities. The
wink-and-nod payment to Mr. Hubbell through Mr. Riady strikes us
as precisely what Mr. La Bella meant by a "loose enterprise." Mr.
La Bella, we should note, was forced out of Justice after joining
Mr. Freeh's calls for an independent counsel.
Advocates of a special prosecutor and the loose enterprise theory
have focused on a key White House meeting on September 13, 1995.
At the meeting was President Clinton, then-Commerce Department
official John Huang (a former senior Lippo Group executive), Mr.
Riady, senior Clinton aide Bruce Lindsey and Joseph Giroir, an
Arkansas businessman with close ties to Lippo. After the meeting,
Mr. Huang was sent to a new post at the Democratic National
Committee. He later pleaded guilty to campaign-finance violations
and received a wrist-slap one year probation from Justice.
It remains to be seen what Mr. Conrad will accomplish. But at
least he seems to be asking some of the right questions. To the
President he said, referring to Mr. Huang and the now-notorious
Clinton fund-raising pal Charlie Trie, "The two people most
responsible for [illegal 1996 contributions] were the two people
that were in that position because of their relationship to you.
Would you agree with that?"
The President angrily retorted, "Is this guilt by association,
sir? What do you want to say?"
We would say there is reason to believe a conspiracy existed to
evade and break the law. If that doesn't matter, then the law
itself doesn't matter.
=================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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